Chapter 462: Are You Stupid?

The main overarching narrative gradually crystallized, revealing that at the genesis of the Matrix, an individual emerged with the singular power to reshape the simulation according to his whim—a hacker.

With the sole exception of Zion, humanity's final citadel, the few souls born into the Matrix who now breathed free owed their liberation to his hands.

Following his demise, the Oracle prophesied his eventual return, foretelling that he would lead mankind out of the Matrix and into the light of redemption.

The ensuing plot unfolded with direct simplicity: a crucible of recovery, refinement, and mastering the art of utilizing the Matrix as a catalyst to forge greater strength.

Yet, exploiting the laws of the simulation proved entirely disparate from reality; the Agents could commandeer the vessel of any ordinary human at will, transforming them into duplicates, perfectly wielding the rules of the Matrix to the point of near-deity within its confines.

Immortality, myriad manifestations, altering natural laws, and bending time itself—every manner of inconceivable ability lay within their absolute grasp.

Whenever humans ventured into the Matrix, almost all who crossed paths with an Agent met their demise, rendering the path to human emancipation exceedingly treacherous.

Yet enter they must, for they had to rescue the human consciousness before they could salvage the flesh; otherwise, the body remained nothing but an empty, mindless husk.

Beholding this, the rudimentary cosmology of the entire film solidified within the minds of the audience: to these cultivators and martial artists, the denizens of this world were a civilization whose technological tree had grown hopelessly skewed, pouring all energy into developing spiritual artifacts while neglecting self-evolution, creating a horrific legion of artificial intelligence artifacts that ultimately dragged mankind into hell.

One needed only look at the sheer horror of these machine minds to realize the terror of fashioning a mechanism like the Matrix to enslave so vast a population, and now, it was a chronicle of self-redemption for these hackers.

This was no ordinary motion picture dissecting the nuances of hacking; it was a revolution of mankind amidst the end of days.

Such a pinnacle of technological prowess was far beyond the reach of their current research methods, yet it did not impede their comprehension of this grand system.

For the majority of the gathering, it could be watched as a common spectacle, since not everyone dedicated their lives to the study of artifacts.

Furthermore, the events within the moving pictures bore no relation to them; they were merely spectators existing outside the frame.

Yet, as they watched this particular chronicle, they did so with an unprecedented sense of awe, entirely distinct from anything they had felt before.

The world unveiled before them was a revelation to their senses; though the universe was vast and filled with wonders, a spectacle of this magnitude utterly surpassed the boundaries of human imagination.

Consequently, most sat with eyes wide and mouths agape, unable to close them through nearly the entire duration.

By this juncture, they believed the savior had finally been discovered, perhaps...

They harbored faith that the hour for retaliation had arrived.

Evidently, this particular foray concluded in disastrous failure; perhaps things might have fared better had no anomaly arisen, but fate decreed that a traitor walked among them.

A soul weary of the daily struggle against the panic of Doomsday, longing only to return to the Matrix and exist as an ignorant, ordinary man.

After all, ignorance was bliss.

And Neo was not yet the savior; at least, not at this present hour.

Perhaps the potential slumbered within him, but he was far from achieving that state, and with the Matrix altering its parameters, everyone found themselves ensnared within the simulation.

Perishing within the Matrix equated to simultaneous death in reality, making the casualties of this skirmish catastrophic; save for Neo and the heroine who escaped, even their leader, Morpheus, remained trapped within to delay the Agents.

Departing slightly from the original lore where pulling the brain jack while the consciousness remained inside caused instant death, this system version saw the mind slowly wither within the Matrix while the physical form suffered brain death.

Witnessing the traitor yank the connection cables of several comrades, directly inducing brain death, Mo Xian and the other timid maidens trembled anew with fright.

They hastily removed their virtual visors to test the threshold, finding they could still exit, before linking themselves back inside.

Then they removed them again, and reconnected, repeating the cycle several times until, right beside Boss Fang, a few young maidens vanished and reappeared in turns, casting glances at the crowd before vanishing and reappearing once more...

Everyone watched this bizarre display in utterly dumbfounded silence.

Boss Fang’s face darkened with exasperation as he muttered, "Are you girls completely daft?"

The silence stretched.

"Which means the absolute reality I feel right now is also the result of this virtual reality?!" Li Haoran murmured, examining his own body while watching the screen.

"Impossible!" Daoist Master Xi Chi asserted, "My primordial spirit can already leave its mortal shell; mere physical illusions cannot deceive my perception!"

Even if trapped within an illusion, one ought to discern a fracture between the true and the false.

Much like when Zong Wu was trapped within the illusory realm of the ancient ruins, he at least maintained the awareness that he resided within a phantasm.

"Look at Neo, he is the savior, yet he remains unable to distinguish the truth; surely it involves more than just physical reactions."

However, even before his awakening, when Neo was trapped in the Matrix and never questioned the reality of his world, he still harbored a subtle, waking-dream sensation.

Within the system's games, every individual—even a master like Gu Tingyun, whose experiences far eclipsed the assembly and whose cultivation was supreme—had subconsciously deemed the great battle between Fei Peng and Jing Tian to be absolute reality when first beholding it.

Moreover, they had detected no falsehood in it.

Even more sophisticated was the ability to converse with the outside world simultaneously; certain masters could play the game while leaving a strand of distracted thought to monitor their physical bodies and surroundings in reality, as if sending a portion of their primordial spirit into another secret realm to explore while the self remained without.

"Virtual reality must refer to precisely this concept," Lan Mo mused, "Yet the items in this establishment must differ, for if they were truly identical to the movie..."

"We would have perished a countless number of times already."

Death in the virtual world signified the absolute demise of the consciousness; if that were the case, every person present would have died dozens or hundreds of times over, given how frequently everyone perished within the games!

A sudden, profound stillness enveloped the surroundings.

This establishment was truly the work of an supreme entity!

"Watch the movie... let us continue watching the movie!" someone hastily deflected, changing the subject.

At this moment, everyone bore witness to the terror of the Agents, who could manifest from any ordinary human within this world, possessing power that defied all reason.

Attacks proved utterly futile; though Morpheus was a hacker capable of augmenting his physical faculties within this digitized realm to a degree far surpassing ordinary men, his efforts against the Agent named Smith amounted to nothing more than an ineffective scratch.

"How can he be this powerful?!" Song Qingfeng cried out in shock, "To stand there and take blows unscathed?!"

Not a shred of skin was broken.

If earlier they had glimpsed the horror of touching upon the truth, then now, having accepted it all, watching the remainder of the film brought a sense of pleasant surprise and exhilaration.

The combat style of these hackers in the film completely shattered the imagination of the spectating onlookers.